Semiconductor devices are used in a variety of electronic applications, such as personal computers, cell phones, digital cameras, and other electronic equipments. Semiconductor devices are fabricated by sequentially depositing insulating or dielectric layers, conductive layers, and semiconductive layers of different materials over a semiconductor substrate, and patterning the various layers using lithography to form circuit components and elements thereon. Many integrated circuits are manufactured on a single semiconductor wafer, and individual dies on the wafer are singulated by sawing between the integrated circuits along a scribe line. The individual dies are packaged separately, in multi-chip modules, or in other types of packaging, for example.
In the semiconductor processing field, various process chambers can be utilized in association with a wafer handling system or device to perform a variety of semiconductor processes. These processes may include annealing, cleaning, chemical vapor deposition, oxidation, and nitridation. The processes may be applied under vacuum, under gas pressure and with the application of heat.
However, the wafer usually has to be placed in a specific orientation before entering the process chambers, and has to have its temperature reduced after the processes. There are still many challenges related to reducing the entire processing time.